Dante's Inferno (1967 film)
Dante's Inferno | |
---|---|
Costume drama | |
Written by | Austin Frazer |
Directed by | Ken Russell |
Starring | Oliver Reed Judith Paris Andrew Faulds Iza Teller Christopher Logue |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
No. of episodes | 1 |
Production | |
Producer | Ken Russell |
Running time | 90 minutes |
Original release | |
Network | BBC1 |
Release | 22 December 1967 |
Dante's Inferno: The Private Life of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Poet and Painter (1967) is a feature-length 35 mm film directed by
Plot
The exhumation of Lizzie Siddal's desiccated body is seen, followed by a shot of Rossetti dancing among the flames of a bonfire of paintings by Reynolds and Gainsborough. A voice-over informs us that Rossetti is a founder of a revolutionary group of artists called the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The figure of the young Lizzie dressed as Joan of Arc appears above the flames. Lizzie is seen modelling for Millais' Ophelia and for a painting of Joan by Rossetti. The voice-over states that she eats little and often throws it up. She and Rossetti spend several years together while he paints and draws her but she spurns his sexual advances, even slashing him with a needle when he presses himself on her. Rossetti turns to the more accommodating Fanny Cornforth.
Lizzie is introduced to laudanum by Emma Brown to alleviate her stomach pain. She is advised by Christina Rossetti that Dante Gabriel needs a patron. Christina's voice-over speaks her poem In an Artist's Studio, about Lizzie. She tells Lizzie she looks ill. Rossetti and Christina visit William Holman Hunt, who is painting The Light of the World. Hunt asks Rossetti to look after his girlfriend Annie Miller while he is away in the Holy Land painting The Scapegoat but Rossetti has an affair with her and Hunt spurns her on his return. John Ruskin visits Rossetti's studio and shows an interest in Lizzie's art.
Rossetti meets
Cast
- Oliver Reed as Dante Gabriel Rossetti
- Judith Paris as Elizabeth Siddal
- Andrew Faulds as William Morris
- Iza Teller as Christina Rossetti
- Christopher Logue as Algernon Swinburne
- Gala Mitchell as Jane Morris
- Pat Ashton as Fanny Cornforth
- Clive Goodwin as John Ruskin
- David Jones as Charles Augustus Howell
- Norman Dewhurst as Edward Burne-Jones
- Tony Gray as William Michael Rossetti
- Douglas Gray as William Holman Hunt
- Derek Boshier as John Everett Millais
- Caroline Coon as Annie Miller
- Janet Deuters as Emma Brown
- Austin Frazer, the narrator.
Inception
Russell had made an earlier film for television about the
Reception
Dante's Inferno's visual style is taken mostly from the Pre-Raphaelite paintings themselves, many of which, such as Millais' Ophelia are filmed in the actual locations where the paintings were created. Russell also uses imagery inspired by silent comedy and expressionist horror films.
Dante's Inferno has been described as "bit of a mess" despite moments of "inspired lunacy". Russell's biographer Joseph Lanza takes the view that its moody black-and-white photography makes the locations in the English Lake District seem like Dracula's Transylvania.[2] Joseph A. Gomez argues that its chaotic appearance hides a sophisticated structure,
Perhaps on first viewing, the film may appear wildly episodic, strangely disorienting, self-indulgent, and extreme to the point of serious distortion. Yet with repeated viewings and research into Rossetti's life, the viewer soon realizes that Russell, like Hamlet, is but mad north-northwest. When the wind is southerly, he, too. knows a hawk from a handsaw...Russell concentrates on what he sees as the central conflict of Rossetti's life – the discrepancy between his ideals of truth, chivalry, and beauty which form the basis of his exalted vision of womanhood and what simply might be called his highly sexed nature. This emphasis, in turn, reveals Rossetti's neurotic characteristics of repetitive, obsessional thoughts and feelings and further assists to justify the film's structure since the content, to some degree, dictates the form.[3]